The automobile industry is a key component of the U.S. economy. It's diversity and complexity does not need to be demonstrated. Most adults own or have access to at least one vehicle which they drive on a daily basis. Many families own multiple vehicles. Millions of vehicles are sold each year, and the cost of vehicles is one of the most important part of a family's annual budget. While few customers know in detail the industry, they all are extremely attentive to new services or innovations that would result in helping lower the overall cost of a vehicle.
Vehicles require routine and exceptional maintenances, repair, management of recalled parts for safety, periodic refueling, and a need to replenish certain fluids as part of routine or exceptional maintenance. For example, cars need window washer fluids sprayed onto a window by wiper blades to help clear a view and help with driving conditions. A car quires other fluids, for example cooling recirculation fluids, lubricating oil, fuel, and water. One key problem with these needs is their complexity. Too often, mechanics or service stations with trained individuals offer help for vehicle owners.
Since the repair and maintenance of vehicles is often in contact with dirty fluids or components, service stations tend to easily get dirty. Vehicle owners rarely enjoy direct contact with greasy and messy environments and therefore service stations endeavor to create a cleaner and safer work environment and service environment where clients can feel at ease. For example, the ground of a working station of a mechanics can be painted and maintained somewhat cleaned. Mechanics can be given stain resistant clothing to further help the overall client experience.
Many service stations have three main areas, a retail vehicle service area, a retail vending area, and a vehicle repair area. The retail vehicle service area as shown for example in FIGS. 1, and 2 from the prior art shows how fuel pumps (often with rain protector) are accessible directly by clients. A person will stop, slide a credit card and select fuel. Often, clients will grab a spout handle and after making sure the fuel is of a certain type will fill the vehicle at need. User know that too often hands will be smelly after use of these handles and oil may.
FIG. 1 is taken from U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,939 from the prior art. In this figure, fuel tanks are buried deep under the ground. What is shown is the use of a secondary system to the fuel pumps 11 placed on top of the system for example as a box 70 mounted on part of the structure capable of dispensing part of a fluid 20 on the roof 14 of the structure. While at a glance this turn of the millennium system appears useful to give drivers a new tool and easier access to quickly fill their vehicles with window washing fluids, the system has never met any commercial success. The reasons are numerous and help understand why the currently disclosed system is an improvement.
As shown, placing the fluid 20 on the roof 14 creates multiple problems. They are not easy of access, their level cannot easily be monitored and they are vulnerable to weather. In addition, the system requires installation, monitoring, and maintenance. A service station owner is highly unlikely to pay money to buy and install this system, simply to replace currently existing systems. Unlike fuel, window washing fluid at the retain vending area is infrequent and the cost of washer fluid must be compared with the current solution of selling drivers in the retail vending area gallon jugs of containers to be poured immediately or to be stored partly in the trunk of the vehicle. In addition, based on weather conditions, the fluid needed may require different properties, for example a different freezing point. With the system as shown at FIG. 1, if it is filled with low cost high temperature fluid, it would have to be purged for a lower temperature solution to be used. From a cost-benefit perspective, these solutions appear useful, they are not and over time, the market has proven this fact. Air for tires, unlike washing fluid on the other hand is often sold using these retail solutions.
One other problem of placing fluids at the retail vehicle service area is theft or destruction. The solution contemplated by the system shown at FIG. 1 from the prior art is to place the product as far away from the user in the retail vehicle service area as possible. FIG. 2 also from the prior art, published as U.S. application Ser. No. 12/758,737 a different take. In this system showed as a larger stand-alone station 110, the base of a cabinet 112 is designed to hold a pumping and delivery mechanism for use the person. To better understand why this solution is not desirable, window washer fluid is generally retailed in the United States in a 128 oz. gallon at a price around $1.80 to $2.50 as of the filing of this application. Since the internal volume of the reservoir of most cars varies from a fraction of a gallon to a gallon or more, the use of the device shown at FIG. 2 would result in a sale of $1 to $3 dollars at most. At these levels of transaction, most electronic cards will impose additional surcharges. The stand-alone cabinet 112 of FIG. 2 at best contains 10 gallons or about twenty-five dollars of fluid. There is simply no cost efficient way to profit from installing, manufacturing, and servicing the device as shown with such low costs. Even if a user is willing to pay twice as much for the product, the margin remains too small to justify the cost of monitoring levels and sending a person to refill the cabinet 112. What is needed is a cost-efficient, and useful way that can be implemented by service stations to bring to the retail vehicle service area these types of secondary fluids.